Encode WMV/Amazon WMV to H.264 .mp4 for playing on HTC Windows Phone 8X

“I can’t play some .wmv video fills on my HTC Windows Phone 8X. I’ve synced some local movies to the WP8. Most play on the HTC phone 8X without a hitch while some of them would not play at all, mainly wmv movies downloaded from Amazon. I thought .wmv is a supported format by Windows Phone 8, isn’t it?”
Why, you might wonder, should the HTC Windows Phone 8X not play WMV movies? It seems confusing to many new Windows Phone 8 users, because WMV should be a supported format by any means. And again, according to Windows, a Windows Phone 8 supports MP3, MPEG-4, Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Windows Media Video (WMV). So why should my HTC Windows Phone 8X not play .wmv videos? This is because the stock player of Windows Phone 8 plays most .wmv movies, but not all of them. There are certain wmv files that are not even supported by Windows phone.

Media files are typically compressed and decompressed using software called a codec. WMV is just a container format in which media contents could be compressed using wmv1, wmv2, wmv3 (vc-1) codecs. By default, Windows 8 phone supports videos that are compressed with H.264, MPEG-4 and VC-1 codec. If your WMV file is encoded with earlier WMV2/WMV1 codec instead of VC-1, the WMV is not playable by Windows Phone 8. To play such kind of WMV movies on HTC Windows Phone 8X, you need to transcode wmv1/wmv2 to vc-1 (or h.264 /mpeg4) before transferring files to the WP8 phone.

How to encode WMV to H.264 .mp4 for playing on HTC Windows Phone 8X
1. Drag and drop source HD videos and movies to the Pavtube Video Converter.
Tip: this app can also be used for compressing big WMV files so as to save storage space.

Also, some other WMV files do not play on protected HTC Windows Phone 8X because they are protected contents. For instance, your Windows 8 Phone gives an error message when playing Amazon instant video, which is only allowed to play on Kindle device and specified computer only. To watch these protected wmv movies on HTC Windows Phone 8X, you need to remove the protection beforehand.